An enthusiastic herb collector’s passion turns into an obsession that ravages her body and soul.
Literary fiction
What Anna Bolavá achieved with this book happens very rarely: Into Darkness is her prose debut, yet it found favour with both readers and critics and was awarded the Magnesia Litera Award in the category for best work of prose. Bolavá uses a proven mainstream technique: take a loner, an outsider with an unusual hobby (collecting herbs in this case), and skilfully transform this innocent pastime into a functional and profound existential metaphor. From the beginning, this story of a lonely, ill woman who has dedicated most of her life to collecting, drying and providing medicinal plants, has apocalyptic undertones. Despite the slow, seemingly dispassionate pace, a strange unease bubbles under the surface.
Praise
“Into Darkness is remarkably magical and powerful prose.”
—Petr A. Bílek, Respekt
“Anna Bolavá has managed to construct a dramatic tale on the foundations of one person’s story, the symbolism and straightforwardness of its plot resembles a modern myth.”
—Petr Nagy, iLiteratura
About the author
Poet and novelist, real name Bohumila Adamová (b. 1981). Winner of the 2016 Magnesia Litera Award in the prose category for her debut novel Do tmy (Into Darkness, 2016), which was hailed by critics as one of the major discoveries of recent years. She has written under different names in various literary magazines and published a poetry collection, Černý rok (The Black Year, 2013), under the Anna Bolavá pseudonym.
Information about the original Czech edition
Other selected published translations (1)
Do tmy German